


Paper-Thin

by badomens444, Suspicious_Popsicle



Series: The Paper Stack [1]
Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, M/M, au bingo, occupation bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 13:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badomens444/pseuds/badomens444, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suspicious_Popsicle/pseuds/Suspicious_Popsicle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 1920's AU based on a prompt that came up during a writing session between Suspicious_Popsicle and myself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper-Thin

Authors' Notes: So, Suspicious Popsicle and I decided to do a collaboration project based on a prompt that came up. This is what happened.  
SP: We spent the better part of our day yesterday planning out various scenarios for several more stories in this set. Then, when she was gonna go back to another project, I fed her the opening line for this one. She cursed my name, but a day later, here’s the first story in The Paper Stack. =D I am a terrible influence. Jubilations!  
\----------------------------------------------------

Flynn hesitated before knocking on the door. Maybe this was a bad idea, even if he was getting desperate for money.

Graduate law school was expensive, and his already tiny inheritance was whittling away very quickly after only a few semesters. Being an intern, even if it was to a powerful and prominent lawyer, did not pay the bills. In fact, it didn't earn him any money at all. He couldn't complain about it, though. The internship was worth more in experience than he could ever hope to earn with a paying job. Unfortunately, the rent on his meager studio apartment was coming due and he had only eaten beans and bread for well over a week now. He was desperate. He hoped that this would help at least a little.

Finally, he knocked, knuckles rapping sharply twice on the poorly stained wooden door. He crumpled the slip of paper in his hand and hunkered down for what was sure to be the worst experience of his life.

Following the pad of feet across a creaking wooden floor, the door swung open. The man who had answered his knock had long dark hair that was pulled out of his pale face and into a messy bun. He had a quill pen clutched between his lips and he eyed Flynn for a second with his dark, storm grey gaze before his mouth stretched out across his face in a long smirk.

"Looks like it might be my lucky day. You here for the job?" His voice was calm and so cool that it caused Flynn to shiver.

This was a really bad idea.

"Yes." Flynn squashed a nervous crack in his voice and tried to keep himself together.

"I've been waiting. Come on in and shut the door behind you." The man turned and walked back into the modest apartment, leaving Flynn to follow.

Although humble and sparsely furnished, this place was more than twice the size of the room Flynn lived in. There was a tattered and patched up brown sofa beneath a row of open windows, and a desk covered with papers shoved into the corner of the room in front of the last window a little further down. The far wall had one of those compact beds that tilted up into the wall to save floor space, and just past that was a kitchen, and a very small adjacent room with a toilet.

From the cushioned, dusty surface of the sofa, a very large dog looked up at him, eyeing him warily as he closed the door and waited there numbly for the orders of what to do next. He had never done anything like this before.

"Don't worry, Repede," the man said, pulling the pen out of his mouth and dropping it onto the desk. "He's here for some cash is all."

The dog let out a short, gruff woof and closed his eye.

"He won't bite, just don't touch him."

That was the least of Flynn's concerns. "Are we going to be doing this with the windows _open_?"

"Oh, I suppose you’re wanting to keep some of your modesty." The man turned to him, still wearing that smirk. He extended a calloused and dirty hand out to Flynn. "By the way, I'm Yuri Lowell."

"Flynn Scifo." He shook Yuri's hand, a little surprised by the firmness of the grip.

"I know you."

That sent another chill up his spine. "W-What?"

"You're interning with the big-shot lawyer Alexei Dinoia right?"

"How did you--?"

"You don't recognize me then? Guess not with all the hullabaloo in the court lately with that bootlegger’s murder trial."

"Who are you?"

Yuri laughed, and that only made Flynn feel more stupid. He had never seen this man before—he was _sure_ of it—but if by chance they had met, and in the courtroom no less, the goings-on here could cause problems.

This was an enormously bad idea. 

"I'm the artist for the _Union Daily_." 

Flynn's mind drew a blank. He knew that there were artists from various newspapers in the court during every trial. That was a given, but he couldn't place this man in particular. The _Union Daily_ was considered a second-rate paper at best, well behind the vast and far better selling _Zaphias Times_. 

"Anyway, now that that's over, let's get down to business." 

\------------------------------------------------------------ 

"Thrust your hips forward. _Oh_ yes. Like that." 

Flynn had been beet red for the better part of fifteen minutes. He could feel the hot sting of the blood in his cheeks as it crept down the rest of his body. It had begun somewhere between disrobing and feeling Yuri's hands on him and hadn't stopped since. Yuri reassured him in a tone that was near mocking, but had been thankfully patient with him. 

"Stop shaking. Relax a little. You've got a great body for this sort of thing." 

Even though Yuri said that, Flynn didn't feel like it was fine. Maybe it was just because he was unused to this. Relaxing was hard to do when he felt like his body was just one big bundle of nerves with every end firing off all at once, sending so many mixed signals to his brain that it made everything seem to blur around the edges. On top of that, his stomach was churning nervously, mixing around the bread and water that had been his lunch. 

"Jeez, you're a mess. I know the flier said no experience required, but this is a little ridiculous." Yuri sighed, pushing a wisp of his dark hair out from between his eyes. "Take a deep breath." 

Flynn did as he was told and the rush of nerves and the churning in his stomach ebbed just a tiny bit. He took another, trying to force his body to ease up even the slightest. He couldn't keep this up. His muscles were aching. His head was reeling. This was painfully embarrassing and he hated himself a little more every second that he couldn't bring himself to just relax. 

"Okay. That looks good. Hold it right there." Yuri backed up a little bit. "Don't tense up. You've got to stay loose for this to work." 

Another deep breath calmed him a little more, and he held the position as firmly, yet as naturally as he could. 

"That's better. See? It's not so bad." 

Flynn had no idea that standing in one spot could take so much work, but if it paid well enough he would give it an honest chance. The standing and holding a pose wasn't even the part that was bothering him. It was his current state of undress that was the biggest problem. 

Yuri swept across the room to the desk in the corner, sticking two or three pencils into his hair and snagging a large pad of paper. He pulled a wooden milk crate from beneath his desk, one that was very similar to the two that Flynn was positioned on, and sat down in the middle of the floor on it. 

With lightning fast speed, Yuri plucked a pencil out of his hair and was sketching. His eyes would dart from the page to Flynn and back again in an instant, and the movements of his hand with the pencil never stopped. He flipped to another page in the pad, and continued the process. He kept up his pace through another three pages before the worn down pencil gave up and he was forced to switch. 

It was at this time that he stopped sketching and gave Flynn direction for a new pose, something a little more challenging. They repeated the fine-tuning of the position before Yuri sat back down and speedily filled in another several pages of his sketchpad. This continued for over an hour. Just as Flynn's muscles would start to ache from holding a pose for too long, Yuri would have him switch to something different. 

He wasn't sure exactly how long they had been at it when the churning of his stomach started again, making it very obvious that Flynn hadn't eaten well in some time. 

Yuri stared at him over his sketchpad, incredulous, before breaking out into laughter. "Sounds like you're hungry." 

"A little." Flynn tried to laugh it off, too, but his stomach repeated itself, sounding angrier this time. 

"Go ahead and get dressed." Yuri scooted the crate to the wall and returned his drawing implements to his messy desk. 

Flynn gathered his clothes off the dog hair-covered sofa where he had left them neatly folded and started redressing as soon as Yuri made his way into the kitchen. It was a relief to be wearing clothing again, even though the extended time he had spent mostly bare felt like nothing more than a slightly unpleasant memory. Really, that probably hadn’t been as bad as it had seemed. What he had expected to be a huge disaster hadn't been so bad after all. 

The clank of pots, the sizzle of something delicious smelling on the stove, the soft bubble of water told him that Yuri was cooking, and the squeal Flynn's stomach let out that time was more of a beg than a demand. He wondered briefly if it was time for him to go so that Yuri could enoy whatever he was cooking that smelled much more appetizing than beans and bread and water. Anything was better, really, but Flynn couldn't afford it. Yuri had yet to kick him out, but even though he was starting to feel like he was wearing out his welcome, he hadn’t been paid yet and he certainly wasn’t leaving without the money he was owed. 

To pass the time until he was either paid and sent away or expressly invited to dinner, he strode to the desk and looked at the pad of the sketches Yuri had done. 

They portrayed his own body in a way he had never seen before and it felt strange. The lines were clean and sharp, steady and smooth. The images were almost like a caricature, forms not of what looked like a real human, like those Flynn had seen drawn and painted by the great masters of the classical period, but instead simplified and fluid. 

Pinned to the wall above the desk, were drawings from the courtroom, black and white stills of the moments that Flynn remembered so clearly. He was even included in a few of them, seated in the row behind the defense table. The judge, the jury, the defendant, the prosecutor and the defense: they were all here. Yuri captured the tension of the court. Beneath those drawings were more like the sketches he had done. People in strange costumes, fancy clothing, some of them wearing nothing at all, all posing just as Flynn had. Some of the faces were even recognizable as people from the court, drawn in crude caricatures. On the desk, there were still more. 

"Quit messing around over there. Dinner's just about done." 

Flynn turned sharply to see Yuri setting out a pair of plates and glasses on the small wooden dinette in his kitchen. The clock on the wall told him that over half an hour had gone by since he had finished posing. 

"Dinner?" He felt stupid asking that. 

"You're hungry, aren't you? I can't send you home with an empty stomach." He dropped a large pot on the table and sat down. 

Flynn followed, body eager for a meal. 

"It's not much, but it should hold you over." 

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and meatballs. Flynn couldn't ask for a better meal. He hadn't eaten meat in weeks. He dug in without having to be asked twice, and in no time, was slurping down pasta like he was starving. After several bites, he slowed down enough to eat like a normal person. 

"Thank you for the food,” he managed between mouthfuls. 

"No problem. How was your first experience selling your body?” 

Flynn struggled not to spit out the water he had just taken a sip of over the surprise of that question. “You make it sound like I'm prostituting myself out.” 

Yuri chuckled through a bite of meatball. “Maybe another time then. I suppose being an intern, even to a lawyer that prominent, doesn't pay exactly pay the bills.” 

“Not really, but I can make ends meet.” It was just harder some weeks than others. 

“You know, some people would pay good money for a body like yours.” 

He could feel his face going red again and wanted to change the subject, but Yuri interjected with a laugh just as he opened his mouth. 

“I'm pulling your leg.” 

"So, I saw your sketches over there. What are they for? Those can't all be for the drawings you do in court, right?" Hopefully the change in subject would make him feel less awkward about this whole ordeal of being in various states of undress for a man who was nearly a complete stranger and who seemed to be flirting with him. Not that Flynn could say he minded that last part. 

"You sure ask a lot of questions for someone who's getting paid for his work." Yuri grumbled. He cleaned his plate, seemingly nearly as hungry as Flynn. He scooped himself seconds out of the pot, and then dropped everything that was left onto Flynn's plate. "But no. They're work for a freelance project I'm doing." 

"What sort of project?" Yuri's apparent annoyance did little to hinder Flynn's curiosity. 

"You know what comics are right?" 

"Oh, like those picture novels at the newsstand?" 

"Something like that." 

"Is that something that pays well?" Flynn honestly wondered why any artist would squander their time on something that was considered so 'cheap'. 

"You know, a job doesn't have to pay well in order for someone to like doing it. Speaking of which," Yuri gathered up Flynn's now empty plate and his own and dropped them in the small sink in the kitchen. He moved to his desk and rummaged around for a moment. He returned with a few bills. "Here. The pay you were promised." 

"Wait, I've been here for two hours. This is only the pay for one." 

"You spent the second hour gawking and stuffing your face. I'm not paying you to be a freeloader." Yuri picked Flynn's coat up off back of the sofa and threw it at him. 

Flynn took that as a sign that his time there was done, so he donned his coat and headed for the door. Yuri met him there, pulling it open for him. 

"Call me." 

Was that an offer for more work? Or something else? His face felt warm once more as he couldn’t help thinking about the possibilities. Flynn couldn't decide which Yuri had meant, but he nodded in agreement. The pay hadn't been bad for the work and the food was a nice incentive. "Thank you, again." 

"See you in court." Yuri leaned against the door as he started to close it behind Flynn, his eyebrows flicking up in a suggestive way that made him shiver almost the same as his smirk did. 

Maybe this hadn't been a bad idea after all. 


End file.
